Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 646
Only Krnovel
EP.646 Episode 646 – The First Wish (2)
Episode 646 – The First Wish (2)
– Kim Ari
A mysterious train of unknown identity.
— Clank! Clank!
Where is this place?
It’s a place that remains in my vague memories of the past.
— Booooooo…!
A loud horn blaring from afar.
I sat on the soft chair and looked out the window, and I couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration.
In my not-so-short life, I’ve ridden trains countless times and seen many beautiful landscapes… .
Even to me, the scenery outside the window was truly amazing.
Who in the world would ever ride a train that runs endlessly across the Milky Way?
“…”
I slowly pulled myself together and straightened out my hazy consciousness.
First, just a moment ago I was at the Delight Hotel and was taking the elevator to the third floor of the Pioneer.
What’s next? [3rd floor: Heaven] I remember someone pressing the button, but after that it’s all hazy.
I think I passed out shortly after pressing the button… .
Second, this place – the Milky Way train – has been on one before. What specifically happened then?
Soon, the air seemed to distort and Ga-in and Muk-seong appeared.
“Ari! You were here!”
“How is this – ah, the kingdom of dreams?”
“that’s right.”
I feel this every time, but the Kingdom of Dreams is a truly useful tool.
*
.
..
…
“Do you understand?”
“okay.”
After listening to Cain’s explanation for a few minutes, I understood the situation.
“It’s already the third floor outside, but everyone except you and Mukseong is dreaming.”
“that’s right.”
“According to the manager’s hint, the reason we dream is to realize our individual wishes?”
“maybe.”
“You are saying that this is the place related to my first wish.”
“Did you realize something?”
Gain and Mukseong’s eyes turned to me at the same time, but I couldn’t give them a cool answer.
“… That’s strange.”
“What part?”
It was when I heard the story about the first wish from my ancestors.
During the conversation, I suddenly realized what my first wish had been.
*
What did I wish for?
If you think about it normally, it would be the revival of the labyrinth or the stability of the world, right?
Suddenly, this thought occurred to me.
Of course I made those wishes, but there was something else too.
A somewhat personal wish.
Not a wish for the world or the maze, but something for ‘myself’.
I think there was a moment that I myself had forgotten.
*
“If the question is, ‘Have you realized what your wish is?’ then I already knew.”
“…”
“At some point, I just realized it naturally.”
It was my memory in the first place, right?
Even if you forget, you can recall it if there is an appropriate opportunity.
After a moment of silence, Gain and Mukseong’s gaze turned to me.
“Why? Are you curious about what my wish is?”
“okay.”
“It’s nothing special. It’s not like it’s about world peace or anything, it’s just a personal wish.”
“Personal wishes?”
“While working as an agent, I have seen and experienced countless mysteries of the world hidden beneath the curtain. During that process, I thought at some point that I wanted to solve all mysteries.”
At that moment, Cain’s eyes shone sharply.
“What you just said could also be expressed as wanting to know the secrets of all things.”
My first wish – to know the secret of all things.
“What’s the difference?”
“I tried to rewrite the sentence by adding the word ‘secret’.”
The secret seems to be telling me my blessing.
“Is there a connection between each person’s wishes and blessings?”
“I guess. I’ll have to check other people’s wishes too.”
— Clank!
At that moment, Mukseong, who felt the noise of the train, asked back.
“Ari, you already knew what your wish was?”
“maybe….”
“Then why is the hotel showing you this memory?”
The question of why this memory is shown to me after I realized what my wish was.
The answer to this came to me quickly.
“I think the ‘realization of desire’ that the hotel talks about is a complex concept.”
“A complex concept?”
The next answer was given by Cain.
“It’s not enough to simply know what a wish is. It seems like you need to understand the background of the wish itself?”
“…”
“For example, if I said, ‘I wanted to become a god.’ I didn’t realize my wish because I knew the seven letters. I had to understand the entirety of what Aleph had gone through in the past.”
“What does that mean?”
“To understand your wish, you must also understand this train. Where is this place?”
“An interstellar train running through the Milky Way.”
“What is that? I’m hearing it for the first time.”
“… This isn’t the first time. You must have seen it before.”
“what?”
A vague memory of the hotel came to mind.
Room 107, Gate Room Fourth Trial – The Secret of the Esper.
“It must have been the fourth ordeal for Room 107.”
“The secret of the Esper?”
“It was then that I realized, ‘Oh, something like that happened?’”
“Umm… I don’t remember.”
“Oh, were you passed out then?”
Mukseong said, frowning.
“An interstellar train running through the Milky Way. Where have I heard of it before?”
“Because it’s a pretty famous paranormal phenomenon.”
At those words, Gain smiled bitterly.
“It’s really strange that the anomaly is annotated with the word ‘famous.’ It’s like a famous secret organization or something. Anyway, what is this train for? Ah, it looks like you’ve been in there before.”
“… They appear periodically here and there on Earth. They usually appear as replacements for actual trains or subways.”
“Are you kidnapping the people who boarded the train thinking it was an ordinary train?”
“That’s right. It suddenly disappeared like that. After this happened several times, we selected the places where the Milky Way train would appear and dispatched agents.”
“That was you? What’s next?”
“… I don’t know.”
“what?”
“I’ve forgotten most of my memories from the train.”
“Did you receive any memory-erasing measures from the administration?”
“No. I had already forgotten it when I got off the train.”
“Hmm… Can’t you vaguely remember anything?”
“Fought with something unidentified?”
“…”
— Clank!
After hearing the words, “There was a fight!” a loud noise was heard and Ga-in looked around with a meaningful expression.
However, nothing more stood out than a sound.
“I guess they won’t tell us what the next scene is.”
“That’s the hotel style. They give you hints at first, and then you figure out the details yourself.”
“… Is there a secret related to the train hidden in one of the cursed rooms on the third floor?”
“maybe….”
“Let’s move on to the next person’s dream.”
*
The next person was Cha Jin-cheol.
“What? How did you – oh, you drew a picture?”
Cha Jin-cheol was also conscious like me, but his expression was not very bright.
“Yes. Bro, where is this place? Is that building a gym?”
“… As you know, I used to be a mixed martial arts fighter. I even fought a few real matches.”
“…”
“This memory… It’s probably like the time when I was losing four games in a row.”
“okay.”
The sky full of dark clouds seemed to be telling us Cha Jin-cheol’s mood.
Even though it is the past that has passed, I guess you still feel a certain amount of bitterness.
When Ga-in explained the current situation, Cha Jin-cheol immediately nodded.
“So the hotel is now showing me memories related to my first wish?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think I know?”
It’s not like I felt like I knew it from the beginning, but rather like I just found out about it naturally now.
“I want to succeed, I want to grow. Isn’t that what it was?”
“If this is the flow, then it seems natural. To put it more plausibly….”
“A plausible expression?”
“The courage to overcome fear and move forward?”
This time, Cain’s interpretation was linked to blessings, but Mukseong tilted his head.
“It’s just that Jincheol is lacking in talent, so what else can you do besides overcome your fear?”
Cha Jin-cheol frowned slightly at those words and replied.
“Now that I hear it, I think Ga-in has a point. At that time, I was obsessed with the thought, ‘I want to win at all costs.’”
The expression ‘at any cost’ made everyone cringe.
Of course, at this time, Cha Jin-cheol is neither a hotel participant nor an agent of the management office, so it is obvious what he can do.
“Brother, do you have any other memories?”
“Other memories?”
“Supernatural memories. Like a train that cut through space, a purple light filling the stadium, a tentacle in the mouth of your opponent -”
“Stop, stop! Not at all. I’ve rarely experienced anything supernatural before coming to the hotel.”
“is it so?”
“I only saw things like chaos and disaster on the news. All I did was win a few games and then get upset and drink soju alone.”
“Hmm….”
Is that really true?
Cha Jin-cheol seems to remember this period as an extremely ordinary situation, but there is one question.
“That’s strange.”
“What’s strange?”
“Jincheol, this isn’t the first or second time you’ve been hit.”
“… What you just said was a bit too much.”
“sorry.”
“You don’t look sorry at all.”
“You must have been depressed many times near the gym.”
“To be honest, yes. I think it’s been over 100 times.”
“Of all the 100+ depressing days, why does it seem like the hotel is showing only this moment?”
“…”
Only then did Cha Jin-cheol frown and look around.
It seems like he’s looking back on a ‘special day’ in the past that he didn’t even realize was strange.
and –
Once again, the dream resets and the surrounding scenery begins to disappear.
“Huh!”
“They’re blatantly hiding the next scene.”
The atmosphere is like, “That’s all for the easy explanation!”
It’s similar to what happened to me earlier.
The next scene, the next piece of information seems to tell you to go into the room of curses and find out for yourself.
“There’s no choice. Let’s move on to the next person.”
“Sang-Hyeon’s dream is right next door, so let’s go there.”
*
— Clank! Clank!
Kim Sang-hyun’s dream was taking place in a place he had experienced once in the past.
“Is there a train here too?”
“Here too? Was there a train earlier too?”
“Ah, Ari’s dream -”
While Jincheol and Mukseong were talking, I frowned and looked at Gain.
“what’s the matter?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t know.”
“… After the end of episode 203, it was the place where the time of choice came.”
“okay?”
I remember it vividly because it was one of the most shocking experiences I’ve ever had, but Ga-in forgot all about it as soon as she got off the train.
“This is the place where Kim Sang-hyun made his wish.”
At that moment, Mukseong discovered something and shouted as if it was funny.
“Hey! Ari is there too! Oh, Gain is there too?”
As he said, there was an illusion of me and Ga-in from the past, and I also saw Kim Sang-hyun sitting across from me.
Kim Sang-hyun’s voice was heard naturally.
“I have a wish.”
“…”
“Since I came to the hotel, for the first time I have a desire more desperate than escape.”
After saying this, Sang-Hyeon got up from his chair, smiled bitterly, and walked towards us.
“Do you remember what happened next?”
“of course.”
After escaping from room 203, the wish that Kim Sang-hyun had told me.
“You said you wished for the salvation of the people who were with you in room 203. It seems that this was your first wish.”
“First wish?”
Ga-in informed Sang-hyun, who was tilting his head, of the current situation.
While talking, Gain suddenly felt puzzled and fell silent.
“Cain?”
“wait for a sec.”
Soon, Sang-Hyeon also felt puzzled and frowned.
“Isn’t it strange?”
“what?”
“Ga-in, Agent Muk-seong, Miss Ari, and Mr. Jin-cheol. They all made their wishes before entering the hotel.”
“Of course – huh?”
“Why is it that only my wish comes after I enter the hotel? Didn’t I pray for something before entering the hotel?”
Another strange thing.
Other people’s wishes had some sort of connection to blessings, but no matter how I looked at Sang-Hyeon’s wish, it had no connection to ‘sincerity’.
Is saving the people a natural virtue of a good king?
This interpretation is frankly too forced.
At that very moment!
— Clank!
The surroundings changed in an instant with the sound of clear water.
*
A completely different landscape appeared in an instant.
The sky is filled with a pale blue light, and the ground appears to be covered in ice and fog, frozen like stone.
Also, what on earth are those unidentifiable spires that appear everywhere!
I was speechless at the sight of what looked like an alien planet.
“What the heck is this place….”
“It doesn’t feel like Earth, but I can’t breathe or anything.”
“Because it’s not real, it’s an illusion?”
“…”
Cain silently extended his hand and pointed forward.
“It’s Sang-Hyeon hyung.”
Jincheol tried to approach Sanghyeon right away, but Gain immediately stopped him.
“Let’s wait and see.”
“what?”
“Unlike before, it seems like you’ve lost consciousness now. It’s like you’re deeply immersed in a dream.”
“Is that so? No, why do you have two completely different dreams, hyung?”
“…because I have experienced the hotel twice.”
“what?”
“Because for Sang-Hyeon, Pioneer isn’t the first hotel.”
“…”
“That sounds like something I experienced before going to the hotel.”
Is the empty wish in front of me the second empty wish that came to Pioneer?
Is that the first wish you made at the Deep Sea Hotel?
— Gooooooo…!
A huge, unknown sound is heard from the spire.
Also heard was the appeal of a man gripped by fear and despair.
“Please… . Please… . Our Father in Heaven! God, Allah, or whoever! Please save me, save us… .”
The next words were quite meaningful.
“Please do not make worthless the golden tower that humanity has built… .”